Nov 16, 2012

Coop Security: Hardware Cloth vs Chicken Wire

by
Kathy Shea Mormino

Very early in my chicken-keeping adventures, I learned the hard way that there is a big difference between chicken wire and hardware cloth. I now
understand that chicken wire is intended to keep chickens confined to an area, not to prevent predators from reaching chickens. My failure to appreciate the differences prior to constructing our first run was costly and my hope is that others can learn from my mistake.

I was no more than 5 weeks into chicken-keeping when I saw the hawk pictured above, peering in at my new pets. Feeling confident that my flock was locked safely in their run, I dashed to grab my camera to snap this shot. What I did not know at that time was that he had already reached through the chicken wire with his razor-sharp talons, taking the life of one of my 5 week old Silkies. We immediately reinforced the run with hardware cloth and no predator has breached our coops’ security since then.

When considering fencing options for the coop and run, as a general rule, the smaller the openings and the lower gauge the metal, the better security it will provide. This hawk was able to reach in through the large holes of the chicken wire to grasp the chick, a feat he would not have succeeded in had there been hardware cloth in place. Hardware cloth is more expensive than chicken wire, but the initial investment is priceless given the heartache and financial losses it can ultimately prevent.

Chicken Wire
Chicken wire, also known as hex netting, is a twisted steel wire mesh with hexagonal openings that can be
galvanized or PVC coated.1
A hungry and determined predator,including but not limited to raccoons and some dogs, can tear through chicken wire with relative ease. It is not recommended as security fencing for chicken coops and runs.

Chicken wire is very flexible and good for making temporary structures designed to keep chickens confined, but it will not stop predators from gaining access to chickens.

﻿

Hardware ClothHardware cloth is wire mesh that consists of either woven or welded wires in a square or rectangular grid that is available in galvanized, stainless steel and bare steel.2 It is manufactured from a stronger gauge metal than chicken wire, (the smaller the gauge, the stronger the mesh) making it a much better choice for flock protection. 1/2" to 1/4" galvanized hardware cloth is typically recommended for coops and chicken runs.

﻿

Hardware Cloth Installation Best Practices

1. Bury hardware cloth to deter diggers. To protect chickens from predators such as raccoons and dogs, hardware cloth should be buried at least 12 inches into the ground around the perimeter of the coop and run OR buried underneath the floor of the coop and run. ﻿

The digging predator that made this ditch was deterred by buried hardware cloth.

2. Cover all windows with hardware cloth.

Had the window been open and no hardware cloth on the window,

this predator would have had a free meal.

﻿

3. Secure hardware cloth with screws and washers. Staples are easily defeated by pushing or pulling.

4. Seal all openings larger than one inch with hardware cloth. Minks and weasels can squeeze through very small openings and kill many chickens in a very short period of time.

167 comments
:

I'd like to make a flexible fence around a large are for my chickens so they quit pooping on my porch, but the chickens fly. My mother said to cut their wing feathers back. Have you heard about clipping chicken wings so they can't fly? Please advice me of what to do..Thanks!

Thanks for the great article on hardware cloth--I lost two quails...the hawk grabbed them one at a time through the chicken wire. I was so sad. Glad to know about this product. Again, thank you for all the great info you provide us chicken lovers.

I need to secure my window coverings with screws and washers, as you suggested. I used a staple gun and periodically have to restaple. I could stop the insanity with your idea! ;) Would also love to win the wreath in this give-away! :D

Very informative. We've used a combination of chainlink, chicken wire, and hardware cloth for our Chick-a-traz. So far so good. The entire floor is hardware cloth. Then covered with soil and such for them to scratch in. I love the wreath as well. I'm always on the hunt for chicken decor. This would look awesome on my kitchen door that leads into my chicken kitchen. :)

Great info... I haven't started my flock yet, we're still looking for land to buy for our house, but once we get out in the county I'll be putting everything I've learned from reading your blog into practice :) - and that wreath is gorgeous!

I LOVE your site, I've gained sooooo mush knowledge from you! I'm new to backyard chickens (1 yr) so you've been very helpful as well as funny tidbits for a beginner like me. I'm gonna be re-inforcing my chicken wire this weekend, thanks for your advice!!!

I've just found your page and can't wait to read through it. I'm a small hobby farmer located in Alaska's Interior. Loving life here with my animals and family. I'd love to be the recipient of the Rooster Wreath, very beautiful! Thank you for this opportunity. :)

I have a friend who had a coon come from under the coop :( so before all of my chickens were able to go outside my father and i put together or coop with cora-plastic sheeting s. rain proof, heat durable sheets that i made the top half (nestboxings) and flooring with! my extention also has 3 walls made from in along with the flooring. ofc i have wire so they get a nice breeze to keep them cool on hot summer days. it came out very nice to say the lease! my babies are too important to me to loose i dont know what id do if someone got in to hurt them :(!

I have learned so much from your site! I am into my first year, first experience with poultry ~ and am having a ball with all the new things I learn, almost daily. I would love to hang your wreath high on my garage where everyone riding down the road could see it! Pick me, pick me, pick me!!!

This article is perfectly timely as we are about to set up an outdoor coop and run for my 9 year old son's silkie pair. The coop itself is wood and hardware cloth, but now I know I'll want to use hardware cloth for the run as well. Thank you for potentially saving my son's sweet chickens!

My mom had one of her pheasants housed in a "chicken wire" pen when we were kids, and a raccoon just ripped that stuff apart like nothing. Since then I get hardware cloth for any of my chicken penning needs! Thanks for the great articles!

I like hardware cloth, but size is also important. I have used the 1/4" size and then came across some fencing/cloth that had 1" openings...good for some places. but not at the ground level or anywhere the coons, can reach in and grap a chick or hen and pull them close enough to kill or do damage....lesson learned!

I have use hardware cloth of differnet sizes. I use 1/4" openings for most things and I cam across a cloth/fence with 1" openings, but it is not good to use anywhere the racoon can reach into the coop and snatch a chick or hen and kill them or mangle them. Lesson learned.

Thanks for the info. I have a hawk problem and have had to net the top of the chicken yard. Unfortunately, my free range chickens are unable to free range unless we are out (working) in the yard. Though many would disagree me, (in my neck of the woods) we could use an open season on them. We have way too many hawks! They circle the chicken yard on a daily basis.

such great information. We just bought 2 acres in the country and are in the process of clearing, fencing and adding livestock. We plan on 20 chickens and a dozen goats. I'm so glad you wrote this,to save us from heartache and disaster. Our chickens will be eternally grateful.

This is a great post Kathy. Thank you for sharing your experience and insight on such an important topic for backyard poultry keepers. I am moving from a suburban setting into a rural setting within a few weeks and I will heed your advice. Thanks again!

Thanks for pointing out Country Craft House! I love crafting if I have extra cash (not often any more). I read your blog also~ part of the dream of an old lady (62) of getting a place to raise chickens.

When I first moved in my neighbors had chickens. My dogs, Alaskan Malamutes had never been exposed to them. Several times they got into our yard and unfortunately my dogs learned quickly they where food. I had to replace several chickens as they had a coop without an top inclosure and my dogs scaled the top and dropped in after getting loose. I now have a 6ft fence instead of the 4ft that came with the house (they scaled with ease ) and my neighbors has reinforced their pen.

Thanks for the post! My son has 3 ducklings and we're getting ready to build a coop. We're starting with a large dog crate, but it needs to be racoon-proofed. Now I know what to get. Thanks for saving our little gals!

We actually had something strong enough to put a gaping hole in our hardware cloth on our chick run but it soon gave up once it figured out that our chicks and ducks weren't going to be an easy meal that night. We patched it with additional wire and now have a motion activated security light that is triggered if anything moves around our chicken coop after dark. The best defense is a good offense.

We are new chicken parents and are two weeks from the chicks moving outdoors to the coop. My question is if we put 1/4 inch hardware cloth on the entire base of the run, do we also need to skirt around the perimeter? Thanks for any advice!

I am a newbie and I was wondering if you have to put the hardware cloth on top of the entire area to prevent hawks etc. from getting in. I plant to have a large area and it would be quite costly to have it above the entire coop area. Would there be something else I could use to help keep the predators out?

Thank you so much for this! People have told me I'm a liar that my coop never has had a breach but I also use hardware cloth! It has amazing strength and really makes it impossible to get in! All my feathered friends are happy and healthy with many thanks to hardware cloth!

I love this post, We used chicken wire all over with hardware cloth around the sides at bottom and into the ground, learned from our mistake with just chicken wire at first:( I have heard that if you use wire as a bottom to the pen even with a few inches of dirt over it, when the chickens scratch they can cut feet, our new pen will just have wire down 12 inches and bent out 6 more inch..Love your blogs, learn so much!

I have heard that if you use electric fence wire (without the electric to it) and string it across the area your chickens forage in, it deters hawks because they can see the it and can't swoop to procure the chicken

We have just built our hen house.... you can walk inside down a corridor and have 2 pens for our guineas and chickens (assorted bantams and larger chickens). I'm new to this.... the pens inside our coop are of just chicken wire, but the windows and doors have hardware cloth. Do I need to reinforce the inside chicken wire with additional hardware cloth? ALSO..... we are now constructing our outside pens, and will dig down and place the hardware cloth about a foot down. Should we curve it an additional few inches as a poster mentioned below? BUT, my biggest question is this. Living in the woods..... I was thinking that my plan is not perhaps as safe as I would like. I was going to put hardware cloth not only under the ground a foot or so, but going up the sides of the walls about 3 feet. I'd like the run to be about 6' high, so that we can walk freely, and am considering chicken wire, or deer fencing of sorts, with wider holes from 3' off the ground to the roof..... is that a bad thought? Do I really need to completely hardware cloth the entire pen? I was going to use aviary netting as a roof.... what's your thoughts on that? Sorry for all the questions..... I am SO confused. Your sight has been a blessing for us, but just need a little bit more clarification. THANK YOU !!!!

Kathy, how do you protect your flock from hawks when you are free-ranging them? We have hawks and buzzards here so I haven't yet let them out of their totally enclosed run. I know they would love to explore beyond those walls and I could use an electric fence to contain them and keep coyotes away, but the overhead predators scare me too much. Any advice?

We've had chickens for seven years and our run is chicken wire. This is the first year we have ever had rats. A lot of people around here are saying the same thing. They dig tunnels all over. We buried over a foot of hardware cloth around the perimeter. Last night something made a big hole through the chicken wire. We had a dead hen this morning and one missing that showed up tonight. Not sure if it was a raccoon or our dog trying to get the rat but we spent all day covering the run with hardware cloth. Hopefully that will solve the problem. Funny how we lasted so long without any problems.

I have been studying the problem since I am working on how to best set up my large coop there are some good ideas on this page http://voices.yahoo.com/keeping-hawks-away-chickens-7003038.html?cat=7 I like the purple martin gourd house idea they are very large and eat harmful insects. Protecting the flock is not just one thing but layered defenses. As for providing cover for free ranging do you think thorny berry bushes like blackberries would work or would the chickens be harmed by them. I am still trying to decide how many birds I will need. I want to supply a local market with organic eggs. My grandmothers who taught me about chickens are gone sadly so I am unsure about a flock size. Physically I need to be able to care for them I was thinking of starting with 36 and then growing to 100. I was at the PA farm show in 2013 and was told I needed 1000 birds to be an organic egg producer. I said I appreciate your advice , but I cannot feasibly care for 1000 hens in one day. He said then you won't make any money. Hmm well ok I amnot doing it solely for the money.. I know I will be attached to my girls and want to know them all very well to know when something changes in behavior. Sorry this is so long, but I really could use some advice on flock sizes. I will have a building coop and several areas of yard that are fenced and covered but I would like them to have some free ranging as scratch yards get depleted too fast and my grandmothers said to let them have options of free ranging when you are not going to be away from the house.You can call them in with a treat bucket anytime you need to get them into the coops and yards for safety.Her oldest hens just did what she told them near the end. SHe had 4 girls left all spoiled. They told me not to worry about killing hens that this yearly thing men do is not good for chickens find my best layers and trade out the ones who need to be and as a last recourse the local butcher for some(egg eaters), but most die of old age as they felt they had earned their life of riley by producing for those years.

I heard that the best way to train a chicken-dog (dog who goes after chickens) where once they used to get rid/shoot them, is to tie the dead chicken they killed around their neck and make them live with it as it rotted for a week. They wouldnt do it again.

Very helpful information! We are going to be building our chicken coop in the next several weeks since our chicks are getting to the point of breaking out of my indoor brooder and was just talking to my husband about what we should use. Thank you! I always know to come here for my answers to questions and once again, you nailed it! :D

I'm replacing my rusted out poultry netting that I buried into the ground around our coop five years ago. Should I buy the PVC/Vinyl coated hardware cloth? Won't the galvanized wire eventually rust? Is 19 gauge sufficient or should I go with 16? Thanks so much for all your information!

I have seen both poly hardware cloth and regular hardware cloth. Do you know if one is a lot better than the other? The poly one seems strong, but I'm wondering if something could chew through it. Thank you!

Am new at this chicken raising so am deciding upon the how-to fencing for the run and always end up at this site. Love my beautiful birds and want to keep them safe and happy. Thank you everyone for your help, advice and encouragement along the way.

Great blog. I am getting ready to build my coop/run and have been stressing over how to protect the chickens. I was going to bury chicken wire under the coop and run, but I'm glad I saw this entry about the Hardware cloth. I feel much more confident that I can keep the ladies safe. Thanks!

I've found that burying mesh does not deter raccoons if you have sandy soil. They will dig down then pull up on anything flexible until they manage to see bottom, then they dig some more--even 12 inches buried. I recommend digging a trench 2 feet deep and wrap the edge of the mesh around rebar, lay the rebar down in the trench, and pour concrete over it. Or you could line it with something rigid, such as cinderblock. Then permanently attach the flexible mesh to the cinderblock with sleeve anchors and washers.

Nice article on coop safety. I have probably spent the past three years coming up with ways to tighten security around the coop. Each year some new predator appears. The first was a snow weasel which made it's way in through a 1/4 inch opening. The second was a coyote who decided to stake out my yard, and lastly I had the pleasure of meeting a fisher cat. On each encounter I lost a bird. I will agree that the hardware material is by far better and more secure then chicken wire. I live in a rural community where predators are finding there way to quick meals. I recently removed the run portion of my chicken tractor and built a 12 x 12 run which consisted of 1/2 inch hardware material. I feel a lot better knowing that the girls are safe in there. I buried the wire as far down as I could, but I also ran wire from where the wire wall panel met the ground and then out to 4 feet. It might be a little overkill. I hope people who are new to the hobby of backyard chickens read this before building or buying an enclosure for their birds. I am not a fan of the chicken tractor because of too many gaps in the design. We learned the hard way. Thanks again for your article.

Three nights ago, I lost my 8 silkies. We had used 1/2 inch hardware cloth and it was actually chewed through and areas shredded. We are shocked by the destruction, assuming it was raccoons. No signs of digging, the run which is extremely heavy was moved 2 1/2 feet. Are there any other predators that could have done this?? We are looking at options for an electric fence.

Thank you for all your wonderful information. We started our chicken adventure in July and love the birds. Last night a raccoon breached our barn and killed Gigi, a gorgeous Polish Bantam; Tootsie, a regal silkie rooster; and Daisy, a sweet white version of your Rachel. I have 3 hens left and it is sad. What reputable hatchery would you recommend? My flock was a rescue from a lady that purchased them without checking zoning and had to give them up. My husband and I took on the challenge of raising the chickens and have enjoyed them immensely. The 6 birds were hatched in March of this year in California. All the girls are/were laying eggs.

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